Studies show that 80-90% of us will not keep our New Year's resolutions! With that rate of failure, it seems like maybe it’s worth considering a different way to go about setting goals for the new year. Those of you who have read any of our Broadway Vocal Coach email newsletters know that I am a big fan of the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Today we are talking about some of the main points in his book, and giving you some tools and practical advice about setting and achieving your goals.
Purchase a copy of "Atomic Habits" by James Clear here.
Get a copy of Chelsea's Warm-Up Series here. Save 20% with the code BVC20
Here's 4 ways you can work with us here at Broadway Vocal Coach:
Use the code PODCAST15 to save 15% on BVC Academy and BVC Masterclass at any time.
College MT Auditions? Watch our recent live Q&A masterclass! Get the replay and free college audition guide here.
Want to work with us? Take the Quiz & Book a Consult!
Connect with us on instagram, @bwayvocalcoach , and @bvcaspire for college prep content.
Find us at www.bwayvocalcoach.com
Join our free, Wednesday newsletter email lis...
Studies show that 80-90% of us will not keep our New Year's resolutions! With that rate of failure, it seems like maybe it’s worth considering a different way to go about setting goals for the new year. Those of you who have read any of our Broadway Vocal Coach email newsletters know that I am a big fan of the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Today we are talking about some of the main points in his book, and giving you some tools and practical advice about setting and achieving your goals.
Purchase a copy of "Atomic Habits" by James Clear here.
Get a copy of Chelsea's Warm-Up Series here. Save 20% with the code BVC20
Here's 4 ways you can work with us here at Broadway Vocal Coach:
Use the code PODCAST15 to save 15% on BVC Academy and BVC Masterclass at any time.
College MT Auditions? Watch our recent live Q&A masterclass! Get the replay and free college audition guide here.
Want to work with us? Take the Quiz & Book a Consult!
Connect with us on instagram, @bwayvocalcoach , and @bvcaspire for college prep content.
Find us at www.bwayvocalcoach.com
Join our free, Wednesday newsletter email lis...
Let's talk about New Year's resolutions and why Chelsea and I will not be setting any this year. Studies show that about 80 to 90% of us will not keep our New Year's resolutions, and with that rate of failure, it seems like maybe it's worth considering a different way to go about setting goals for the new year. Those of you who have read any of our Broadway Vocal Coach email newsletters know that I am a big fan of the book Atomic Abz by James Clear. And so today we're gonna talk about some of the main points in that book and hopefully give you some tools and other ways to think about setting and achieving your goals for the new year. Hi, I'm Cynthia Corman Westfall, a Broadway music director, conductor, voice coach, and tenured faculty member at one of the top musical theater programs in the. And
Chelsea:I'm Chelsea Wilson, a performer turned voice teacher to Broadway stars and vocal coach on Broadway productions like the Panama VI Opera School of Rock and more
Cynthia:Here on the Broadway Vocal Coach Podcast, you can expect real talk about the business, practical advice, and constant encouragement. We believe there's space for every artist in this industry. All you need is the right support. So consider us your two women hype team. Welcome to the Broadway Vocal Coach Podcast, where we help musical theater performers get unstuck and take the next step in their career. So Chelsea, tell me have you ever made New Year's resolutions? Is there one that comes to mind that's especially. Memorable
Chelsea:Oh, yes. Have I made them? Yes. Have I kept them? Oh, so infrequently. But yeah, one New Year's resolution comes to mind. I feel like most people's resolutions at the start of the new year revolve around losing weight and saving money. I think those days are very two very popular. Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. areas. And the best resolution I ever. Was the exact opposite of that. My roommate and I, in college, we were living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Our resolution was to eat at a new restaurant every week. We were gonna spend tons of money and eat tons of food, and honestly, best resolution ever. We totally kept it, and in fact, we started a blog. This was like back in the time when the blogs were thing. There's, you can probably still Google this blog. It was very clever. I'm honestly very proud of it. If you find. please DM me and let me know. It was called We Eat Ann Arbor and we would go to, I gotta, yeah, I've gotta send you a link to this, because we would go and we would review restaurants all over town like, like we knew what we were talking about, but we were just like, we just wanna go. We always eat at the same three places, so let's go eat at a new restaurant every week. And we brought friends with us and it just became this social thing. Where we would bring a new friend every time we'd go out and eat and we would have a new experience every week and Wow. Best resolution I ever made. Wow. I think I need to revive that
Cynthia:again. I'm gonna have to dig up that blog That's amazing. I'll send it to you and look to see how many of those restaurants are still here and how many I can drive. I'm curious. Actually, there are some points we're gonna make later in this podcast that I think support why you were able to keep that resolution. Mm. So we'll talk about it. Wait. So one of the main points that James Clear makes in his book is this, we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. I love that so much. So he recommends you forget about your goals and instead focus on your systems. What do you have in place that will support the goals rather than just focusing on the goal?
Chelsea:My husband and I recently listened to the audiobook of this after you had sent about. 10 emails to our newsletter referencing Atomic Habits. I was like, fine, Cynthia, I'll read Atomic
Cynthia:Habits. I'm a
Chelsea:fan. So we recently listened to it in on a long car ride, and one thing I really loved about this concept is it kind of takes the good and bad, or I'm good and bad, like the morality out of I should be motivated enough, strong enough, smart enough
Cynthia:to, my willpower should be strong enough.
Chelsea:Like, if I don't keep my goals, then I'm bad, or mm-hmm. my willpower is pathetic. Or like I'm pathetic, you know? And it takes all of that out and just says, human nature is, you won't do what you don't set yourself up to do in like a habitual way. Like we're saying here, talking about creating systems that support you. Because at the end of the day, like if I don't have my gym clothes, On my dresser in the morning, and if the protein shaker isn't already filled with the protein powder and if my baby's car seat isn't out where the straps are ready, like out to the side and ready for her to be placed in the car seat, it's too many hurdles for me to jump over to try and achieve my goal of going to the gym in the morning. Yep. So I love that we're talking about this today and I, I really do think my big takeaway. Was taking the good and bad or like the, I'm good and bad if I can't keep this goal
Cynthia:I think that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So let's talk about it. How do we set up systems that will set us up for success? Yes. And I love Chelsea. I love that you got as specific as saying, the straps in my car seat, my baby's car seat need to be open. Yes. So the baby can go right in. Yeah. I love that. Literally. Yep. So today we're gonna talk about four laws of behavior change. That James Clear calls the habit loop, and he gives a lot of strategies in the book for breaking bad habits. So if you're interested in that, please do go get in the book and or listen to it like Chelsea did. But today we're gonna really just focus on the four laws of behavior change that help us build and sustain good habits. All right, let's get into it. What's the first law? Number one, make it obvious. So, for example, Chelsea having the protein shake already to go the car seat, ready to go the gym. already laid out. It is obvious what that goal is and how she is going to support herself with the systems that she put in place. Mm-hmm. One of the ways to help make it obvious is something he calls habit stacking. And what that means, it's identifying a habit that already exists and then stacking a new habit that you tie to it. So, for example, if you brush your teeth every morning, Is there a habit you can tie to the brushing of the teeth? It could for in Chelsea's instance, it could be. That's when I put my gym clothes on, I brush my teeth, I put my gym clothes on. You're already doing that brushing of your teeth every single morning. Tie one more little thing to it. Now she's overcome that hurdle of getting that outfit on before she goes to the gym. Yep. So identifying some habits that you already have that you do every single day is a great way to. Tie another habit to it. Habit stacking. Another one is this boy, Chelsea nailed this with the gym as well. Environment design habits are created more easily when your environment supports it. So for example, when Chelsea's clothes are already laid out, car seats already ready to go, and the protein shake is already. Half mixed and ready to go. She's got some environment design there that is helping to support what that goal is. Same with, I know a lot of folks who live in New York, they've got a portable keyboard that they keep in their closet and, you know, they have a goal to warm up every day, do a little singing every day, but getting past that hurdle of having that keyboard in your closet is just one step too many, you know. So environment design can be as simple as just. Having it be obvious in your space, having whatever it is that you want to do, obvious in your space. Same with hydration. You know, if you know that you wanna hydrate, keep that water bottle out, keep it on the counter, keep it filled the night before so it's ready to go. You don't even have to bother filling it in the morning. And I would also, even though we're not really talking about how to get rid of bad habits, I think this is a good opportunity to talk about getting rid of the things that don't serve you. So if you are trying to drink more water and less diet soda, Consider getting rid of all of the diet soda so that it's no longer an issue of willpower. It just simply doesn't exist in your. You don't have to think about it.
Chelsea:I must say getting rid of the diet soda is not one of my goals. In fact, it's something I lean into very hard. like did I go to Costco and buy a case of Diet Coke yesterday? Yes, I did. yes I did. But yeah, that's so very strong.
Cynthia:If that is a part of your system, Chelsea, then more power to you.
Chelsea:There are worse things I could do since
Cynthia:this one. Absolutely.
Chelsea:I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna hold onto this one for as long as I
Cynthia:can. Absolutely. Well, we're gonna, you know what, hang onto that bit about diet soda because here we go. Number two, make it attractive. If Chelsea can give herself that diet soda and that gives her a little something that makes it attractive to go to the gym because she knows she's gonna get to drink her diet soda on the way to the gym. Mm. That just made the gym a little more attractive. Yeah. So can you bundle a new goal with something you already love if you love diet? So, Could you save your diet soda from when you get in the car to go to the gym or when you go to take your walk to get to the gym or whatever that is. Other examples, you know, save your favorite Netflix binge show to watch while you're on the treadmill. Treat yourself to your favorite pumpkin spice latte while you are, you know, writing your thank you notes or while you're writing some other something that you. What are other things we write? I recommendation letters for me. I write, oh God, dozens of recommendation letters, and I love to do them for people, but I find it hard to sort of, once it's in the recommendation cycle of the season and I'm doing so many of them, I, I can create sort of a ritual around it and I get a few little things lined up that I know will make my space really nice while I sit there and write my recommendation letters. So making it attractive other ways to make it attractive. This one I love because it's literally what we tried to do with the B V C membership is join a culture where the desired behavior is the normal behavior. Hmm. I love this so much. And this really is where a community like B V C I think is so important and, and quite literally one of the big reasons we created it, it's so that you can surround yourself with folks who have similar goals so that it feels normal and it feels supported. You don't have to explain yourself, you don't have to get derailed. You don't, I, I love not explaining yourself. I, I think sometimes in our field, we often feel a little bit like the weirdos Why can't you stay out late tonight? Mm-hmm. how come you can't have another beer? Do you really have to not talk all afternoon? Right. You know, there's all sorts of things like that that can sometimes make us feel a little yucky or have to explain ourselves. It's really nice to be in a community where everybody knows what you're going through. Everybody's in some form of the same boat. It's a supportive environment. Everyone's goals are very similar. That's a great way to make to make your goals attractive as well. One more under the make it Attractive is what we were just talking a, a minute ago with my recommendation letters is motivation rituals. So, for example, if making a pre-screen video makes you very anxious, fills you with dread, can you set a ritual around it? Can you meet a friend afterward? Can you get a manicure? Can you take a walk with a cup of coffee afterward? Can you have your Diet Coke when you're finished making your pre-screen? Mm-hmm. is there something that you can do as a little ritual that you know, every time I do a prescreen. I do this.
Chelsea:Yeah. I have a friend who leaves every live audition and goes and goes and gets a treat. I love that. So I've done this thing and I know this is coming afterwards and that's motivating to me. And I know there's gonna be a moment of rest and treating myself after this, you know, audition that might fill me with some anxiety or just some feelings in general. So I agree. Making it motivating and attractive to implement these new goals. Cynthia, what's the third Law of
Cynthia:behavior change? The third law of behavior change is make it easy. I'm come back to your gym. It is so
Chelsea:important and I think it's so important. I think also this is where, I mean we could talk about the morality of it again cause it was like my huge takeaway from the book in every one of these points. But like, if it's hard to do something, you won't do it. Like, don't say I have to be a superhuman in order to accomplish this goal. No. Make it as easy as humanly possible to do the thing you wanna do and don't expect yourself to. I don't know, stronger, smarter, full of more willpower are than you actually are. There's nothing wrong about that. There's nothing bad about that.
Cynthia:It's so interesting to even hear you say that because I do think there can be a psychological barrier that when people. Set an audacious kind of goal. We think it actually does have to be hard and that it has to really cost us something. Mm-hmm. and sometimes it really doesn't. Sometimes putting systems in place that support it will make it actually feel fairly easy. It doesn't have to be such an expensive thing for you to take on a big goal. It will feel hard if you don't have a system in place, but when you have systems in place, it really can start to make some of these things feel easy or at least easier.
Chelsea:So what are some ways that we can make
Cynthia:it easy? So one of the ways which you so brilliantly highlighted with your gym habits
Chelsea:are so glad I provided you with this example
Cynthia:I quite too, we didn't plan that. I didn't know you were gonna come up with that one. I love that. But, but here's what that is. The number one thing make it easy is reduce friction. Meaning if you are going to go to the gym and you know, that means you have to have a separate outfit and you have to have the protein shake and you have to take your baby along to drop off at the daycare. Reducing friction is exactly what you did. You're setting out the clothes ahead of time. You've got your car seat set out ahead of time. You've got all the things you need to make it really easy. So basically it's priming your environment so that there is the least amount of friction to your new habit. So one of my examples is I deal with chronic pain and one of the ways I manage my pain is the way I eat, which over a course of a long time, I have identified what. Seems to make it worse. What seems to make it a little better, and the only way, because this is such a big thing for me, the only way I can really set myself up for success is I have to plan days where I'm gonna do meal prep. And I go shop and I get my stuff and I've got all my little containers lined up and I do my cooking and I put all my individual containers together and I put them in the fridge. And now for the rest of the week, I just grab a container. I don't have to think about it. Mm. So I'm thinking about it for one day. Which, to be honest, has become kind of fun. I kind of enjoy, I listen to a podcast yes. Or I watch Netflix. I've
Chelsea:set myself up with You Made this motivation, I've made it attractive.
Cynthia:Yes. Yep. I will watch I'll watch shows on Netflix while I'm cooking, or I'll listen to a podcast while I'm cooking and, and that is my way to reduce friction. Otherwise, every day I think I would wake up and have a little bit of a panic about what I'm gonna eat, how I'm gonna do it, how am I gonna get that food? It's incredibly overwhelming. Yeah, so priming your environment so there is the least amount of friction to your new habit. I love that one. Mm, here's a good one. The two minute rule. When you start a new habit, consider that it could or should take you less than two minutes to do. What do we think about that one? I think that's
Chelsea:really powerful. Like I think about a big, a big project like writing a book or writing in your journal or if we're thinking about actor specific things. Overhauling your audition book, searching for new repertoire. Searching for a voice teacher online. Gosh, I don't know. There's a million things. If you say, gosh, this is gonna, this is a huge project. I know I've got hours ahead of myself. No, just start. Set aside two minutes and just begin the process. Open the notes app on your phone and write at the top. Search for voice teachers and make your first bullet point Chelsea Wilson, the greatest voice teacher I've ever heard of. I'm just kidding. But like literally just start the process of whatever it is that you're trying to do. Spend two minutes and write down everything that's in your audition book already, and then put it aside. There's just something to getting started. And letting kind of the creative juices flow of like, oh, well I can do two minutes of that. I can come back to it.
Cynthia:And so often, once you do two minutes, You've gotten over that hump of inertia starting. You've got, like you just said, the juices are flowing very often. Those two minutes turn into more and you're happy to do it. Mm-hmm. because the hard part is just getting started. Yeah. There's a a couple examples that I love of this. One is my own which is I ran my first marathon having. Run in 12
Chelsea:years. Wait, when did
Cynthia:you run a marathon? Yeah. Kind of a long story, but I had run track in high school and so the last time I think I ever ran was my senior year of high school. So fast forward. A while. And it was a, it was shortly after my mom had died and after she died, I was just so sad. And so I finally decided I'm gonna run a marathon. this is how I'm gonna get out of my funk. Yeah. Is I'm gonna run a marathon. And I did it through team and training, which is a program that basically trains you to run a marathon. And then while you're doing it, you. Money for a charity. So I raised money for cancer research on behalf of my mom while I was training for this marathon. This is not a, a lie. This is 100% truth. On my first quote unquote run, I could not run longer than a minute. And I had my watch on and I was timing it and I ran a minute and I thought I was gonna die. So that was, that was where I started, was running one minute. Mm-hmm. and over the course of, I think I trained for about five months. Dang it. If I didn't run that entire marathon in five months, having only run one minute on my first training, that's incredible. So I love that as an example because I, it's something I continue to go back to myself. Whenever something feels really daunting for me, I can look back on that time and think there's not much more physically daunting than a marathon. From zero. Yeah. And even in the physical state and the emotional state, I mean, I was a wreck emotionally, physically, spiritually. I was just a wreck at that time. But one minute of running the next day turned into like a minute. 10 seconds. Yes, But it was the consistency over time and getting through those first couple minutes, those were the hardest, slowly, you know, I built up longer and longer runs and yeah, within a about five months I actually ran a frigging marathon. That's incredible.
Chelsea:What's one other way folks can make it easy, make their new goal, their new system.
Cynthia:Well, this is another one that can be a little controversial and it takes a leap. But consider automating as as much as you can or in any way you can. So, for example, if you struggle with procrastination and you get caught up in your phone and you play Candy Crush, every time you have to do something you don't wanna do or you start reading the news or you're scrolling social media, consider putting some. guardrails up, and you can choose how intense you want these guardrails to be. So for example, I had my teenage son. Take my phone from me and put some guardrails up around a couple games that I was playing whenever I didn't wanna do something else.
Chelsea:I love that you asked your teenage son to do this for you and not that you had to do this for your teenage
Cynthia:son, Exactly. My son is actually so much better at self-regulating on social media and on his phone, So he set up on a couple of apps that were my biggest Triggery apps. Mm-hmm. I now on a couple of them, I only get five minutes a day and then it shuts down. That's all I get. Mm-hmm. I have another friend who asked someone to change her password every week on her social media, so, She stays off it for a certain number of days, and then she goes on it at the end of the week and the friend gives her the new password each weekend so that. She knew that she could not be trusted around social media. She had goals that she wanted to achieve, and so she enlisted a trusted friend to change her Instagram password every Monday. Give her the new password on Friday. And that was just the system they set up. And sometimes even doing some of these things for a short period of time that if, you know there's a goal that is finite, that you know, I need to finish this in the next couple months. Maybe you wanna put up some. Stronger automated guardrails to help you through that period of time.
Chelsea:There's a lot of ways to automate your life. I automate a lot of my emails, like I get a lot of the same kind of email inquiries all the time, and I have a note in my notes app that I just kind of copy and paste, change a little bit of the language, and send the same reply over and over again. Like I don't need to write that email from scratch every time. So, yep, you can do that. I know there's. Like Gmail, you can send automatic replies based on certain word triggers and whatnot. Yeah, like there's a lot of tools about this. There's a lot of ways you can automate your life, and I'm a huge fan of it. There's also a website called If this, then that. Have you ever used this website before?
Cynthia:No, but I already like the name of it. It's really
Chelsea:cool. And you can set up these electronic and digital triggers that if this happens, if I get an email with this in the subject line, then. I want you to create a calendar event on this other calendar. You know, like it actually connects a lot of the things that we use digitally, not just within one suite of products or kind of one platform to automate a lot of things in our life digitally. You can think of a lot of ways to do this in your analog physical life, and of course many ways to do this in, in your digital life. and again, it's not like no shame on you that you want to compulsively use Instagram. The little robots who designed Instagram have. Completely compulsive for our brains. And again, that's nothing on you. You're not bad because you need some help controlling your time on social media or whatever the case may be. We need help. Our brains need help. That's right. Hence we need these systems in place.
Cynthia:That's right. And I love that you mentioned, you know, these apps and games food, you know, has been chemically engineered to light up all the sweet spots in your brain. Yes. These games are made to light up all the sweet spots in your brain. So, You must have to think of creating your environment and your systems equally sparkly as the way they set up their systems in order to make you want to do that so much, right? You have to set up your own systems to make you want to do the other thing just as much, which,
Chelsea:which brings us to the fourth law of behavior change, which is
Cynthia:make it satisfying. I love this one. So the first thing about make it satisfying, immediate satisfaction, what is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. Chelsea, I think your example of even just the Diet Coke, you clearly love your Diet Coke. That is such a great easy reward. Yeah. That you could use all throughout the day for anything. And I do and I do. I love that. So what is rewarded is repeated. I have a personal trainer who gives me, at the end of my sessions, I go early in the morning and at the end of my session. I get a cup of yogurt that he is mixed. His wife actually makes some meals for me. She's a fabulous chef. So she brings down a little container, it's yogurt mixed with protein powder and berries and nuts and hemp seeds and like all this good stuff. And that's what I take with me every time I leave the gym. I love that yogurt bowl. I can't tell you how much I love that yogurt bowl. And there are a lot of mornings when I do not wanna go do my workout, and I think, oh, and I'm gonna get that yogurt bowl afterward. Yeah. And that gets my butt in the car. Another fun one. Is a habit tracker. I cannot overemphasize how much I think this works. The habit tracker. Measuring your success can be really satisfying. So there's all kinds of apps out there where you can. Enter various habits. They have check boxes, or there's some that have chains where every day that you do a habit, it links to another chain, and so you can kind of see how long your chain is getting, and that can be really satisfying. That's why again, with apps
Chelsea:like, like dual lingo are so. Inspiring because you have a streak. You're like, yes, you've been using duo lingo for 14 days, don't lose your streak. And it sends you a reminder and you're like, yes,
Cynthia:don't lose my streak Yeah, exactly. And for example, one of the things I do, again with my personal trainer, I only see him twice a week. And so I, I set goals that. I'm gonna do for the next three or four days until I see him again and we draw a little box and I write out what those goals are gonna be, whether that's gonna be, I'm gonna do one extra workout, I'm gonna take three family walks, and I'm going to eat such and such, and I'm going to make sure I get my eight hour sleep opportunity every night, and I'll make myself a little box. And then the next time I go to do my workout. I feel so good checking that box. Do not underestimate tracking your progress. It can feel really, really good just to physically draw a box that you get to check when you've done the thing you want to do. I love a
Chelsea:checklist. For this reason, I think I'm the kind of person who writes down tasks I've already completed so that I can go ahead and cross
Cynthia:them off the list. I 100%
Chelsea:do that. I wondered if we could maybe do a little thought experiment and like, let's pick a goal that maybe some of our listeners might have and walk through each four of these laws of behavior change and just give a couple examples of how we might do that. Let's say someone wants to vocalize warm up three times a. how might we help somebody do that? you're not vocalizing at all, you're not singing at all. But I wanna vocalize three times a week. So how might one our first law of behavior changes make it obvious? Like you said, if you are comfortable playing the keyboard, make sure your keyboard's out or put a post-it note. My dad is a big fan of Post-it notes. Put a post-it note on your mirror that says, don't forget to vocalize today, or, yep, something in our digital age. Set an alarm.
Cynthia:Set an alarm, or, this is one of the tricks that I use, is put it in your calendar. Literally put it in your calendar as an appointment. Yes, as an appointment. Here's the 20 minutes. It's gonna be at one 20 on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, or whatever. You know, you can set it the night before, but put it in your calendar so that you see it. It tells you when you're gonna do it. You have a plan for when you're gonna do it I do think a calendar is one of your strongest ways, because then you can set an alarm to support the calendar entry mm-hmm. that you made.
Chelsea:Yeah. You've blocked off time. Yep. To make it obvious that this is the time that I've blocked out to do this thing. Don't schedule anything else. Don't take any other appointments at that time. Okay. How might you make it attractive? I think habit stacking here is a good option I'm gonna sing, and then this is when I, then after this is when I watch my favorite show, or after this is when I call my friend or call my mom and catch up with'em on the phone. Mm-hmm. that can be a way to, again, ha stack it with something else that feels fun, that feels attractive. Something I did recently. was, I was having a hard time practicing and vocalizing on my own. I do a lot of teaching, but like my own voice care goes out the window sometimes. So I started posting on my Instagram and on my TikTok, like, okay, here's my vocalizing for the day. Mm-hmm. here's what I'm doing today, checking in, and I don't know if I, I might be cheating here, I'll make it attractive, but it was, I'm going to engage on social media and talk to other people about what I'm doing and that I'm bundling that with this habit that I'm trying to mm-hmm. incorporate. Mm-hmm.
Cynthia:Yeah, I love that. I think also joining a culture, there's a number of ways you could do that. Either, you know, showing up for class where it support. You know, if you're showing up to a class where you're gonna sing, that gives you a reason to be doing consistent warmups because you know you're going to be singing or performing. But sometimes joining a culture could even be two other friends who are in the same place as you are. maybe Chelsea and I start a little text chain so that every Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you and I text each other and say, I did my warmup. Did you? Yeah. Yes. And you just have a little accountability there, and you have someone who's in it with you who wants to do it with you.
Chelsea:That's worked really well for me. I had a reading goal a few years ago, and I had that exact thing. We, I had a text thread and we would just send like a check mark in the text. once, once I had completed the amount of reading that I wanted to do that day, that was it. Like, no, no other fanfare. And I was in a culture where my behavior was being supported. And I, again, I do think that that's where our community of members in Broadway vocal coach is so fantastic. There's so much support for that kind of behavior. Yeah. Okay. How might we. Easy. The third law of habit building. Oh, this is
Cynthia:a good one. Easy reduce friction, and the two minute rule. Both of these are gonna be really good reducing friction. For example, if you have bought Chelsea's fabulous warmups. Yes. Know exactly where those are. Have them at the ready. It's like two clicks to get to it.
Chelsea:Then have the, the warmup recording that you're gonna use, whether it's a past voice memo with your voice teacher that you're gonna replay, or whether it's my warmup series, which I will include a link to in the show notes and a discount code for our listeners. Put it, save it right on your home screen. All you have to do is click on your home screen. That audio file opens up, you press play. How easy is
Cynthia:that? Yep. And that may be one of those things where. you need an hour on someday to find those things. I wanna go back into, I'm gonna have to look through 20 voice memos to find the one that I loved the most from that voiceless and I had six months ago with that person. Yeah. Or you know, like I It's funny, Chelsea, before. I don't know, a year, maybe a year, at least half a year before you and I started BBC together. I actually bought your warmup series cause I loved it so much. I remember that. I remember that. And I bought it. And then I couldn't find where it went. it was somewhere in the cloud. It was somewhere on a device and I couldn't find it. And so for the longest time I didn't use it just because every time I thought about. You didn't work, didn't time, or the wherewithal at that moment to sit there and start searching and figuring out where it was, that's the friction
Chelsea:that'll hold you up. Yes, that's
Cynthia:friction. So you may need, you'll need an an initial investment of time to get yourself set up for success. Like that's the example of me with my cooking. In order to get myself set up for the whole week, I do need to make an an investment one day a week to get to the grocery store, to do all the chopping, to do all the prepping. Then I'm good for the rest of the week. This may be one of those things where you need to invest an hour of time to identify those warmups, get them in a place where they're really easy to play. I like that you said
Chelsea:invest too, because I wanna just give a little shout out for spending a little bit of money and a little bit of time to make something 100% easier for yourself. Yes, yes. It's so easy to talk yourself out of. Well, okay, well I can just get my keyboard outta the closet and I can play the chords for myself as I vocalize, and you know, maybe I could just devise whatever warmup routine I wanna do that day or whatever. And you know what, that is so many hurdles to jump over, whereas you could spend a little bit of money. We did not plan this ahead of time, but you could spend a little bit of money and buy my warmup series, and just press play on this thing that's already ready for you to go. Yeah. And you sure You invested a little bit of money and a little bit of time to put it in a place on your phone where it's always easily accessible and then you never have to think about
Cynthia:it again. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Fourth, it's the same as me investing in a whole bunch of containers. That are glass that I can put in the microwave. I don't have to worry about going from my plastic container, dumping it into a, an actual bowl or a glass container. Cause I don't like to microwave my plastic. So, you know, I made this initial investment and now I've got all my little glass bowls. Yes. Stacked. They're ready. One time investment works great. Two minute rule. Obviously make it. that even if you can commit to two minutes to do that warmup, but chances are once you get going, you're going to go ahead and do the full 10 or 12 minutes. Yeah. I love that. Make it satisfying. Yeah. What do you think is a good make it satisfying? Make it satisfying?
Chelsea:Well, back to what you said about, you know, what is rewarded is repeated. Just back to this idea of I get to do this thing afterwards or.
Cynthia:Or just tracking the habit and like you were saying, track the habit. Yes. That check mark to your friend who's doing it along with you, that's satisfying.
Chelsea:That's satisfying to just see the check marks roll in on your paper calendar that you printed out and put on your
Cynthia:fridge. I like to draw the box. Mm-hmm. I know there are apps where the box appears and then you click and a check mark comes. I'm actually someone who likes to draw my box, write the thing I'm gonna do, and then check the box. Yes. Yes. Do it all. Love drawing the box. I think that's so important. So that is a reward for me.
Chelsea:Yeah. Honestly. Same. Same. Well that's a great way we can kind of put, practically apply this to a goal that some folks might have who are listening.
Cynthia:I think one of the big takeaways then from all of this is, and this is again coming from James Clear, is this idea about building your identity around your habits instead of just measuring the outcome of your goals. So for example, rather than, I'm going to try to warm up three times a week. it becomes part of who you are. I sing three times a week. I warm up three times a week. It's just who I am and it's what I do. I am a singer, and it singer become, I am a singer and I, I warm up three times a, you know, a week. Yeah. So that if somebody, you know, asks you to go to brunch, you can, you'll immediately say, oh, I would love to I've got my, I'm, I'm singing at, you know, 11 o'clock I can meet you there by 1140. that it's just who you are and what you do. And a singer sings. And whatever it is, you know, whether it's singing every day, whether it's moving your body every day, whether it's not drinking, whatever, whatever that thing is, it just becomes who you are part of your identity. And that is always gonna be a stronger stick than the I'm going to try to do such and such.
Chelsea:I can't wait to hear what systems our listeners are gonna be putting in place in their life so that they can achieve and create the kind of habits that they, they wanna incorporate in their life this year. I'm excited about it. I gotta gotta do some thinking. What am I gonna incorporate this
Cynthia:year? I know. Hmm. It makes it so much more fun, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Even just thinking about putting systems in place already makes me feel more likely to stick to it. Yeah. Than thinking about what's my resolution gonna be? What's my goal gonna be? Because I just, I know I'm gonna be in that 80 to 90%. That's not gonna keep it, but if I put a system in place, that's exciting.
Chelsea:Thanks Cynthia.
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